This page is subject to the extended confirmed restriction related to the Arab-Israeli conflict.Kafr Bir'im, also Kefr Berem (Arabic: كفر برعم, Hebrew: כְּפַר בִּרְעָם), was a former village in Mandatory Palestine, located in modern-day northern Israel, 4 kilometers (2.5 mi) south of the Lebanese border and 11.5 kilometers (7.1 mi) northwest of Safed.

[12][13] Among the findings here is an Aramaic bronze amulet inscribed in Hebrew letters, believed to offer protection to "Yudan, son of Nonna".

[15] In 1596, Kafr Bir'im appeared in Ottoman tax registers as being in the Nahiya of Jira, part of Sanjak Safad.

[21] In 1881, the PEF's Survey of Western Palestine described the village as being built of stone, surrounded by gardens, olive trees and vineyards, with a population of between 300 and 500.

[23] In the 1922 census of Palestine, conducted by the British Mandate authorities, Kufr Berim had a population of 469; all Maronite Christians.

[29] The Interactive Encyclopedia of the Palestine Question describes the pre-1948 modern period in Kafr Bir'im thus: "Their houses, made of stone and mud, were built close together.

"[6] Some villagers assisted European Jews traveling to Palestine by way of Lebanon by distracting British police officers, who were restricting Jewish immigration.

However after the court ruling, an Israeli Air Force bombing on September 16, 1953 "levelled" the village and 1,170 hectares of land were expropriated by the state.

[35] In his book Blood Brothers, Father Elias Chacour, who was a child away at school at the time, records the story of what happened, as told to him by his brothers: For the second time, the village elders marched across the hill and presented the order to the Zionist soldiers...Without question or dispute, the commanding officer read the order.

On Christmas morning...bundled in sweaters and old coats supplied by the Bishop's relief workers, the villagers gathered in the first light of day...Mother, Father, Wardi, and my brothers all joined in singing a jubilant Christmas hymn as they mounted the hill...At the top of the hill their hymn trailed into silence...Why were the soldiers still there?

One shell slammed into the side of the church, caving in a thick stone wall and blowing off half the roof.

[36] The leader of Melkite Greek Catholics in Israel, Archbishop Georgios Hakim, alerted the Vatican and other church authorities, and the Israeli government offered the villagers compensation.

[38] In August 1972, a large group of Israeli Jews went to Kafr Bir'im and Iqrit to show solidarity with the villagers.

It was left to his agriculture minister to reveal to the public that a special cabinet committee had decided that the villagers of Kafr Bir'im and Iqrit would not be allowed to return.

[30] On the occasion of official visits to Israel by popes John Paul II in 2000 and Benedict XVI in 2009, the villagers made public appeals to the Vatican for help in their endeavour to return to Kafr Bir'im, but have so far remained unsuccessful.

[44] The Palestinian artist Hanna Fuad Farah made memory of Kafr Bir'im a central theme of his work.

[45] Priest Elias Chacour, who was expelled from Kafr Bir'im at age 6, wrote of his return to the village ruins by way of Bar'am National Park in his autobiography.

[30] Kafr Bir'im is among the demolished Palestinian villages for which commemorative Marches of Return have taken place, such as those organized by the Association for the Defence of the Rights of the Internally Displaced.